The correspondent, Salud Hernandez-Mora, confirmed she was abducted and held by the communist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and thanked the Catholic Church for facilitating her release.
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“I would not voluntarily have my family suffering for 10 days”, she said, acknowledging that while she might be temporarily out of touch due to technical problems or the demands of a story, she would not willingly spend six days incommunicado.
The disappearances of the three journalists, if they were in fact kidnapped, may become an obstacle for peace talks between the Colombian government and two guerrilla groups: the ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The government did not classify the disappearances as kidnappings, but the group has held hundreds captive during more than 50 years of war.
Her colleagues Diego D’Pablos and Carlos Melo, of Colombian television channel RCN, were then attacked and detained Monday while covering her disappearance.
Hernandez, who is a correspondent for the Spanish paper El Mundo and works for other outlets, was reportedly kidnapped last Saturday close to the town of El Tarra in the northern region of Colombia, known as Catatumbo.
Eyewitnesses said the journalists were seized by armed men – possibly members of the armed National Liberation Army, or ELN, rebel group.
According to Reuters, even though Colombia and the ELN agreed in March to begin peace talks, Santos said at the time that no official talks would begin until the group freed all hostages.
Gen. Alberto Mejia, the army chief, said security forces face a steep challenge.
“From the very beginning I was held against my will”, she said.
The Jamaica-sized region of northeastern Colombia is among the country’s poorest, most marginalized backwaters. The group has completed exploratory talks with the government regarding peace dialogues but no date has been set for the start of talks.
Colombia’s president said Wednesday that a Spanish journalist missing in a lawless region might not be a hostage of leftist rebels as has been widely thought in this war-weary country, but instead is reporting from inside a rebel camp.
Hernandez, who reports for the Spanish daily El Mundo and writes a column for Bogota’s daily El Tiempo, told Villa she was on her way to the city of Cucuta from where she was going to take a flight back to Bogota.
Norte de Santander is a hub for cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and for the smuggling of goods from neighbouring Venezuela.
Santos has staked presidency on securing a deal to end Colombia’s half-century conflict.
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The 2,000-strong ELN has increased oil pipeline bombings in recent months and continued kidnappings in what many see as an attempt to pressure the government into beginning talks quickly.
